LucasArts E3: New Monkey Island Game Coming

The mystery of which classic adventure game LucasArts is going to resurrect has just come to an end. One of the first big reveals of E3 was Lucasarts' announcement that they were hard at work creating a brand new Monkey Island game.

This continuation of the classic adventure series will be called “Tales of Monkey Island”, and it will be a 5-part episodic game for both the PC and the Wii. All of your favorite characters are back, including the mysterious Voodoo lady, the evil LeChuck, the bumbling Guybrush Threepwood and his true love Elaine. A lot of the original designers and writers behind the first Monkey Island games are back for this new installment, which will hopefully ensure this is a worthy continuation of the series.

In this Gamespot interview you can see dev talk on what to expect from the series. It's going to be chock full of puzzles and gags (with plenty of inside jokes for old fans of the series), and we can also look forward to a whole lot of 3D swashbuckling action.

Monkey Island fans won't have to sate themselves with just one game, either. In addition to Tales of Monkey Island, LucasArts is also remaking “The Secret of Monkey Island”, which was one of the greatest adventure games of all time. This remake should follow the same plot as the original, but with updated graphics and a few nifty new features.

First of all, this revamped remake will run on top of the original game. At any time you'll be able to switch between the 'classic' Monkey Island and the revamp. LucasArts has also added in a hint system, which will help players who get stuck find out where they need to go. Hints will start out vague, but the more help you need the more blatantly they'll tell you what to do. This is a really innovative new feature, and it should allow gamers to actually finish the game instead of getting stuck and getting too frustrated to continue.

LucasArts is definitely on the right track with these new Monkey Island titles. From what we've seen so far, it looks like they're staying true to what made the originals great and only making changes where they are absolutely necessary. It's so easy to go overboard with a remake and go too far, adding in new features that don't really mesh with the feel of the series. If LucasArts can avoid shaking things up too much, we might just have a new classic on our hands.

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